Perhaps the most apt metaphor to describe the decade ahead is that investors, consumers and taxpayers will all be rafting whitewater rapids with ever-briefer stretches of calm.
Geopolitical / financial risks are proliferating and becoming more difficult to predict or hedge for a very basic reason: the era of global integration and accord has ended and the era of global disintegration and discord is heating up. In historian Peter Turchin’s terminology, when everyone finds reasons to cooperate, the result is an era of accord; when everyone finds reasons not to cooperate, the result is an era of discord.
Beneath the chaotic swirl of complex dynamics and risk, two core drivers emerge: de-globalization and de-financialization.
The 30-year era of increasing globalization has reversed, reducing the influence of markets and increasing the influence of national security. Where the globalization era led to global trade agreements which served at least a few of every participants’ core interests, the de-globalizarion era will be characterized by fragmentation and deals being cut between nations outside of traditional alliances and ideological camps.
In the neoliberal worldview, markets are solutions to virtually every problem: open up markets and let price discovery and innovations solve all problems. This construct is ideologically appealing, but in the real world, markets generated extremely risky supply-chain dependencies on unreliable offshore sources: yes, these dependencies were efficient and profitable, but when things fall apart, they cause dominoes to fall far beyond what “markets” anticipated or could hedge.
The 50-year era of increasing financialization has also reversed. In a nutshell, financialization optimized capital at the expense of labor / wage earners, and optimized speculation via the vast expansion of credit and leverage, enabling finance to commoditize virtually everything in the global economy: labor, capital, goods, services and yes, even risk.
But commoditized risk that can be hedged only includes the risks that are visible and known. When extremes become more extreme, the potential for risk to escape the neatly fenced corral of hedged risk increases in ways that cannot be quantified and hedged.
I tend to think many observers focus too narrowly on risks arising from financial crises, for example a crisis in the multi-trillion dollar shadowy derivatives market that could cascade as holders of derivative contracts with claims on underlying collateral (for example, the homes underlying nortgages in a mortgage-backed security) start seizing the collateralized assets embedded in the derivatives chain.
While I make no claim to understanding “The Great Taking” scenario and cannot vouch for its accuracy, the basic idea is well-established: derivatives (such as CLOs and CDOs, as well as many even more exotic concoctions) can include claims on the underlying collateral of debt-based assets such as homes or vehicles.
The risk few seem to be discussing is not the seizure itself but the political firestorm any such seizure would ignite. The public has tolerated a stinking mass of self-serving bailouts and insider dealings under the threat of “if we don’t do this, the entire system collapses in a heap” for the past 15 years, but their patience with financier stripmining may run out more quickly than the political elites imagine.
History suggests that social revolutions often start spontaneously from an apparently trivial event: the deadwood of a corrupt system rigged to funnel asymmetric rewards to the few at the expense of the many finally catches fire, and quickly becomes a conflagration.
While many commentators have noted China continues reducing its holdings of US Treasuries (UST) and the general trend of de-dollarization, i.e. offloading Treasuries and seeking payment mechanisms that do not include the US dollar (USD), few seem to ponder what risks might arise in other currency flows, for example, the capital sloshing around the global economy as Direct Foreign Investment (FDI), money that flows into an economy as investments in assets such as manufacturing, mining, housing, tourism, etc.
Just as capital flowing in or out of sovereign bonds reflects the interests of each participating nation, so too do FDI investment flows and the sales and purchases of Strategically Significant Commodities.
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The post <a href=https://www.lewrockwell.com/2024/06/charles-hugh-smith/10-geopolitical-financial-risks-to-the-global-economy/ target=_blank >10 Geopolitical / Financial Risks to the Global Economy</a> appeared first on Conservative Angle | Conservative Angle - Conservative News Clearing House
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Geopolitical / financial risks are proliferating and becoming more difficult to predict or hedge for a very basic reason: the era of global integration and accord has ended and the era of global disintegration and discord is heating up. In historian Peter Turchin’s terminology, when everyone finds reasons to cooperate, the result is an era of accord; when everyone finds reasons not to cooperate, the result is an era of discord.
Beneath the chaotic swirl of complex dynamics and risk, two core drivers emerge: de-globalization and de-financialization.
The 30-year era of increasing globalization has reversed, reducing the influence of markets and increasing the influence of national security. Where the globalization era led to global trade agreements which served at least a few of every participants’ core interests, the de-globalizarion era will be characterized by fragmentation and deals being cut between nations outside of traditional alliances and ideological camps.
In the neoliberal worldview, markets are solutions to virtually every problem: open up markets and let price discovery and innovations solve all problems. This construct is ideologically appealing, but in the real world, markets generated extremely risky supply-chain dependencies on unreliable offshore sources: yes, these dependencies were efficient and profitable, but when things fall apart, they cause dominoes to fall far beyond what “markets” anticipated or could hedge.
The 50-year era of increasing financialization has also reversed. In a nutshell, financialization optimized capital at the expense of labor / wage earners, and optimized speculation via the vast expansion of credit and leverage, enabling finance to commoditize virtually everything in the global economy: labor, capital, goods, services and yes, even risk.
But commoditized risk that can be hedged only includes the risks that are visible and known. When extremes become more extreme, the potential for risk to escape the neatly fenced corral of hedged risk increases in ways that cannot be quantified and hedged.
I tend to think many observers focus too narrowly on risks arising from financial crises, for example a crisis in the multi-trillion dollar shadowy derivatives market that could cascade as holders of derivative contracts with claims on underlying collateral (for example, the homes underlying nortgages in a mortgage-backed security) start seizing the collateralized assets embedded in the derivatives chain.
While I make no claim to understanding “The Great Taking” scenario and cannot vouch for its accuracy, the basic idea is well-established: derivatives (such as CLOs and CDOs, as well as many even more exotic concoctions) can include claims on the underlying collateral of debt-based assets such as homes or vehicles.
The risk few seem to be discussing is not the seizure itself but the political firestorm any such seizure would ignite. The public has tolerated a stinking mass of self-serving bailouts and insider dealings under the threat of “if we don’t do this, the entire system collapses in a heap” for the past 15 years, but their patience with financier stripmining may run out more quickly than the political elites imagine.
History suggests that social revolutions often start spontaneously from an apparently trivial event: the deadwood of a corrupt system rigged to funnel asymmetric rewards to the few at the expense of the many finally catches fire, and quickly becomes a conflagration.
While many commentators have noted China continues reducing its holdings of US Treasuries (UST) and the general trend of de-dollarization, i.e. offloading Treasuries and seeking payment mechanisms that do not include the US dollar (USD), few seem to ponder what risks might arise in other currency flows, for example, the capital sloshing around the global economy as Direct Foreign Investment (FDI), money that flows into an economy as investments in assets such as manufacturing, mining, housing, tourism, etc.
Just as capital flowing in or out of sovereign bonds reflects the interests of each participating nation, so too do FDI investment flows and the sales and purchases of Strategically Significant Commodities.
Read the Whole Article
The post 10 Geopolitical / Financial Risks to the Global Economy appeared first on LewRockwell.
The post <a href=https://www.lewrockwell.com/2024/06/charles-hugh-smith/10-geopolitical-financial-risks-to-the-global-economy/ target=_blank >10 Geopolitical / Financial Risks to the Global Economy</a> appeared first on Conservative Angle | Conservative Angle - Conservative News Clearing House
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